Nursing’s Meg Zomorodi to lead new Interprofessional Education office

Meg Zomorodi, clinical associate professor in the School of Nursing, will lead Carolina’s new Office for Interprofessional Education and Practice as assistant provost of Interprofessional Education.

Interprofessional education (IPE) occurs when two or more professions “learn from, with, and about each other to enable effective collaboration and improve health outcomes” (WHO 2010). Interprofessional education allows students of different disciplines to engage in interactive learning to increase collaboration and improve the health of individuals and populations.

Carolina created this office to establish itself as a leader in IPE and collaborative practice. The Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice will align the University’s professional schools to prepare a workforce with the knowledge and skills to respond together to the needs of the communities the University serves and the greater society.

Potential outcomes of the office’s work include development of entrepreneurial leadership for health professionals, exploration of legal and ethical issues to address individual and population needs, and partnership with learning sites to create models for interprofessional learning and community collaboration.

The office will oversee the creation, implementation and dissemination of interprofessional education, research and clinical experiences designed to enhance collaborative learning. It will also develop and implement an evaluation system for interprofessional learning that demonstrates the impact of IPE on practice patterns.

Housed in the Health Sciences Library, the office will consist of an Assistant Provost (Zomorodi) and a full-time administrative assistant, who will work in collaboration with interprofessional education directors selected by each participating professional school.

The first schools expected to participate at Carolina are dentistry, business, education, medicine, allied health, nursing, pharmacy, public health and social work. IPE directors will serve as ex-officio members of their school’s curriculum committees and on the steering committee for the Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice.

Zomorodi will lead the office in:

Examining accreditation standards and strategize ways to introduce IPE to meet competencies for each school to provide a unified approach;

Prioritizing IPE initiatives and match them to competencies for learning need; and

Increasing collaborative experiential learning activities for students in all professions.

Zomorodi, a Josiah Macy Jr. Faculty Scholar, earned her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Carolina’s School of Nursing. She is lead faculty for the Health Care Systems advanced practice area, chairs the executive committee for the master’s program and teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Zomorodi also serves as a Well Care Home Health Faculty Scholar and director of Carolina’s Rural Interprofessional Health Initiative. She recently completed a two-year program with Sigma Theta Tau International as a Nurse Faculty Leadership Academy Scholar.

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